The most commonly used lawn mower today is of the type having an inverted cup shaped frame with a prime mover, usually a gasoline powered engine but sometimes an electric motor, mounted on the frame with a vertical shaft extending through the frame and a horizontal cutting blade affixed to the shaft below the frame. The horizontal blade rotates at a fast rate, cutting grass. The rotating force of the blade blows the grass out a side opening outlet chute formed in the frame.
In order to improve the discharge of the cut grass out the side opening chute, some blades have a small portion which is curved upwardly at the outer end to provide a fan effect. This helps lift the grass up as it is cut and forces air out the outlet chute to carry the cuttings with it.
Lawn cuttings, particularly if the grass is high when cut, may be of relatively large size and when deposited directly onto a lawn tend to shade the grass and interfere with its growth. In addition, the deposited cuttings are unsightly. For this reason many meticulous gardeners rake the grass cuttings or attach collecting receptacles to the lawn mower to catch the cuttings as they are discharged out of the housing outlet chute.
It is known that if the cuttings are sufficiently fine they will sift down between the blades of grass on the lawn so as not to shade the grass. At the same time fine cuttings form a mulch, preventing evaporation of water from the soil. In addition, fine grass cuttings caught in a receptacle or grass catcher are more readily reacted by bacteria and therefore when placed in a compost pile will be more quickly converted by bacteria into usable compost.
For this reason it is desirable that the cuttings emanating from a lawn mower be as fine as possible. The present invention is directed towards a lawn mower having a means of chopping cut grass, leaves and the like into small sizes.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an improved lawn mower which cuts grass, leaves and other material which is discharged out of a side chute with an auxiliary cutter to cut the grass cuttings into small sizes.
This general object, as well as other and more specific objects of the invention will be fulfilled in the following description and claims, taken in conjunction with the attached drawings.